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Saturday, May 1, 2010

Book Review: The Sword by Brian M. Litfin

The Sword: A Novel (Chiveis Trilogy)What would happen to the human race if we lost all technology and went back to stone castles, handmade clothes, farming by hand? The people in The Sword show us. There has been a series of tragedies...a disease that wiped out most of the population....a nuclear war....climates gone haywire. A few scattered groups of people survive to rebuild their lives. One of these groups names their land Chiveis. Chiveis is a mostly happy land, surround by wilderness that none dare to enter. But Chiveis has lost the God of the ancients and now worship their own gods in their own way.
Then on day everything changes. It starts with a guardsman, a well known tournament champion, discovers a book of the ancients far from the borders of Chiveis. He brings this book back to share with his friends, Anastasia (a farmer's daughter), Maurice (his friend and mentor), and Shaphan (his student). This small group of people decide to bring the ancient's God back to Chiveis no matter what the cost.

This leads the group into quite a religious struggle with the High Priestess of the current religion who refuses to see a new religion that could potentially take some of her power from her. The group is attacked from without and faces betrayal from withing as they struggle to make sense of this new God and bring his truth to their world.

I loved this book, the plot, the character, the setting...everything. The characters are engaging and interesting. Their lives flow through a world that is well made, beautiful, and at times frightening. The struggles they endure and the choices they move the story forward is way that draws the reader even further in. I can't wait to see what the second book brings.

4.5/5

This book was received from the publisher as part of the librarything early review program in exchange for my review. My review expresses my honest opinion of the book.